The Brothers to the Rescue shootdown 28 years later: Continuing the struggle for truth, justice, and memory

 #TruthJusticeMemory

On February 24, 1996, at 3:21 and 3:27 PM, heat-seeking air-to-air missiles fired from a MiG-29 UB piloted by Lorenzo Alberto Peréz Peréz that destroyed the two planes the men were onboard, and killed Mario de la Peña, age 24; Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, both 30, and Armando Alejandre Jr., 45. Mario, Carlos,Pablo and Armando were members of the humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue.

This was a premeditated act of state terrorism carried out by Mr. Peréz Peréz on the orders of both Fidel and Raul Castro and through the chain of command issuing the unlawful order that murdered these four men.

Cuban spies learned the flight schedules and were instructed not to fly on February 24 and, if they had to, to alert the MiGs with a motion while in flight to save them from suffering the same fate as the other planes.

Ana Belen Montes, a Cuban spy working in the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, carried out an influence operation to shift responsibility from the Cuban dictatorship, to its victims in Brothers the Rescue. 

Twenty eight years later, and we are just learning that Ambassador Manuel Roche, a high level spy for Havana, who in 1996 was the principal deputy of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, and may have played a role in assisting the Cuban dictatorship minimize its accountability in this act of terrorism it committed against U.S. civilians in international airspace.

This was a premeditated killing over international airspace. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) concluded that the two planes "were shot down miles away from Cuba’s boundary having never entered or touched it on that day and the planes had been in contact with the Cuban tower throughout the flight."

They failed to destroy a third plane with Sylvia Iriondo, Andrés Iriondo, Jose Basulto, and Arnaldo Iglesias on board. 

There is no statue of limitations on murder and state terrorism.  There is much more in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.

Over the past 28 years friends, and family have continued to demand truth, respect memory and demand justice through protests, petitions, and law suits. 

Family members held a silent vigil for their loved ones on February 23rd, gathering at 3:15 pm at Florida International University, with the vigil starting at 3:21pm and ending at 3:27pm. On February 22nd a vigil was held in Washington DC outside of the Embassy of Cuba.

Today at 10:30am at Opa-locka airport, where Brothers to the Rescue had their hangar, Jose Basulto, and other survivors of the February 24, 1996 shoot down will gather together to hold a vigil.

Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown Anniversary: Continuing call for justice

"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." -  Elie Wiesel

Murdered, 2/24/96 in a conspiracy carried out by Castro regime and its spy network

Twenty one years ago on February 24, 1996 on a Saturday afternoon over the Florida Straits two civilian planes were blown out of international airspace on the orders of Fidel and Raul Castro in an act of state terrorism that claimed the lives of three U.S. citizens, Carlos Costa, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre and U.S. resident Pablo Morales.  

Two years later in 1998 when Castro's wasp spy network was broken up and Gerardo Hernandez arrested the one person to be held accountable was finally in custody. In 2000 following a lengthy trial he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for conspiracy to commit murder and espionage. On December 15, 2014 President Obama commuted his sentence and on December 17, 2014 announced that Gerardo Hernandez had been returned to Cuba. He was welcomed back by Raul Castro where he proudly declared that he was ready to complete another such mission for the dictatorship. Two days later in a year end press conference President Obama sought to rewrite history declaring this premeditated crime "a tragic circumstance."

Thi is why it is so important to continue to stand up silently on February 24th at the times both planes were shot down and hold a moment of silence, remember, and continue to demand justice. We must also remind our fellow countrymen that  U.S. courts have also found the Castro regime guilty of premeditation in this shoot down on three occasions.

1. U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King found Cuba guilty in civil court of planning the shoot down before the actual attack, and noted that there had been ample time to issue warnings to the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft if these had been needed. 
2.  A jury in criminal court presided by U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard found Miami-based Cuban spy Gerardo Hernandez guilty of conspiracy to commit murder because of his role in providing information to the Cuban government on the flight plans of Brothers to the Rescue. 
3. On August 21, 2003 a U.S. grand jury indicted the two fighter pilots and their commanding general on murder charges for the 1996 shoot down.

The Free Cuba Foundation has announced on its blog that once against it will join together with the victim's families at Florida International University at the main fountain on University Park Campus on February 24, 2017 in a moment of silence from 3:21pm to 3:27pm the times that the two planes were shot down.


Brothers to the Rescue page for the shootdown

Shootdown Victims ( Families page)

Brothers to the Rescue and the Shootdown Conspiracy 20 years later

"Only through non violent means can we cleanse the Cuban nation from the hatred instilled by the dictatorship in Cuban hearts. The nonviolent methods have proven to be the most effective and humanitarian means of resistance against Castro's totalitarian state." - Jose Basulto, Our Struggle, March 2, 1996
 

Painting of Brothers to the Rescue shootdown

Twenty years have passed since the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, but the regime that ordered this act of state terrorism remains in power and continues to behave in a criminal fashion murdering nonviolent dissidents and smuggling weapons to outlaw regimes such as North Korea. At the same time, it is important to remember the significance of the Brothers to the Rescue organization, the four lives lost that day and the struggle still being carried out by their families for justice and reconciliation.

How and why Brothers to the Rescue formed
In February of 1991 news accounts of the death by dehydration of 15-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo, a rafter fleeing Cuba, as U.S. Coast Guard officials tried to save his life shocked the moral imagination of several pilots. This was not an isolated event. Academics Holly Ackerman and Juan Clark, in the 1995 monograph The Cuban Balseros: Voyage of Uncertainty reported that “as many as 100,000 Cuban rafters may have perished trying to leave Cuba.” Anecdotal evidence documents that some of them were victims of the Cuban border patrol using sand bags and snipers against defenseless rafters. 

Gregorio Perez Ricardo

It was within this context that on May 13, 1991 Brothers to the Rescue was founded with the aim of searching for rafters in the Florida Straits, getting them water, food, and rescued. In December of 1993 Brothers to the Rescue inaugurated their permanent hangar naming it after Gregorio.

Brothers to the Rescue by November of 1995 was collaborating with the Florida Martin Luther King Institute for Non-violence and took part in the King Day parade in 1996. On February 8, 1996 The Miami Times reported “that this group has come around to the belief that change can be brought about in Cuba in the same way that it was brought about by Dr. King in the United States.” The Miami Times concluded in the editorial “Spreading King’s Message” that “In throwing Dr. King's principle into the volatile mix of Cuban exile politics, Brothers to the Rescue is showing a willingness to be creative.”

Brothers to the Rescue logo

 Why the Castro brothers wanted to destroy Brothers to the Rescue

They risked their lives in the Florida Straits to rescue Cuban rafters and at the same time Brothers to the Rescue challenged the Cuban exile community to abandon both the failed violent resistance and appeasement approaches in order to embrace strategic nonviolence.  This path followed the way of Martin Luther King Jr. with both civil disobedience and a constructive program. What was the end result? Brothers to the Rescue saved more than 4,200 men, women, and children ranging from a five-day old infant to a 79 year old man, and rescued thousands more during the 1994 refugee crisis.

One year after the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre in which 37 men, women and children were killed Cuban exiles organized a flotilla to travel in a civic non-violent manner to the spot six miles off the Havana coastline where the "13 de Marzo" tugboat had been attacked and sunk to hold a religious service for the victims. The Brothers to the Rescue overflight of Havana, where they dropped bumper stickers in Spanish that read "Comrades No. Brothers" was in response to Cuban gunboats ramming the lead boat of the flotilla.

Brothers to the Rescue also served as a bridge between a nonviolent civic movement inside of Cuba and an exile community seeking a different approach. Cuban dissidents announced on October 10, 1995 the intention to hold a national gathering of the opposition in Cuba on February 24, 1996. The coalition of over a 160 groups named themselves the Cuban Council. Brothers to the Rescue in an open and transparent manner sent $2,000 of privately raised assistance to this coalition on February 13, 1996. In the days leading up to February 24 over a 180 dissidents were imprisoned in a nationwide crackdown.

Coretta Scott King and Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue

The events surrounding the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down began weeks in advance with the dictatorship planning out the shoot down and using its spy networks to obtain information to carry out this act of state terrorism while blaming the victims in the media coverage. It was a conspiracy to destroy Brothers to the Rescue while at the same time taking attention away from a crack down on a national gathering of the democratic opposition in Cuba. This was taking place in the midst of a profound crisis for the Castro regime following the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 and a warming relationship in 1994 between the Clinton administration and the Cuban dictatorship that included secret joint military exercises. However, none of this changed the brutal nature of the Cuban dictatorship in how it dealt with Cubans on the island or the continuing hostility of the Castro regime for the United States.

Juan Pablo Roque standing with Basulto and Rene Gonzalez kneeling

Castro brothers planned out the February 24, 1996 shoot down
Two Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, providing information to the Castro regime on the group, disinformation to the FBI, and their Cuban spy ring leader, Gerardo Hernandez warned the two infiltrated agents not to fly during a four-day period that included the day of the premeditated attack. Six days before the attack a Cuban pilot saw Cuban MiGs rehearsing the shoot down.  

On February 24, 1996 at 3:21pm and 3:27pm two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by two Cuban MiGs over international airspace killing four. Two more MIG’s chased a third plane to within three minutes of downtown Key West, but that plane made it back and provided critical information on what had occurred.

Within moments of the shootdown, allegations were immediately generated that Brothers to the Rescue had involved itself in "paramilitary activities against the government of the Republic of Cuba." Juan Pablo Roque, who had defected the day before, and arrived in Cuba through Mexico, claimed that they had been planning to introduce anti-personnel weapons to blow up high-tension plants. This cover story collapsed when the third plane returned to Key West.

The four men who were killed represented all aspects of the Cuban diaspora: Armando Alejandre Jr, a child who arrived with his parents from Cuba in 1960, Carlos Costa, born in Miami Beach in 1966 and Mario Manuel de la Peña, born in New Jersey in 1971 the children of Cuban exiles. Pablo Morales was born in Cuba in 1966, raised there and was saved by Brothers to the Rescue when he was 26 years old while fleeing the island on a raft. Two were from Havana, one was from New Jersey and the other from Miami Beach. 

DIA analyst and Cuban mole Ana Belen Montes

Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belen Montes facilitated a meeting between U.S. government officials and retired U.S. Navy admiral Eugene Carroll on February 23, 1996 to relay recent threats by the regime that provided Admiral Carroll a lot of television interview time on February 25 to place the Cuban government in a more favorable light and place the blame for the shoot down on the victims. U.S. counterintelligence officer Scott W. Carmichael in his book True Believer describes how they thought this was an "influence operation" - a covert attempt to influence public opinion. Her behavior raised questions that led to Montes being uncovered as a high ranking Cuban mole in the heart of the Pentagon in 2001.

The Castro regime targeted Brothers to the Rescue for slander, infiltration, sabotage and extrajudicial execution on February 24, 1996 because it viewed the organization’s nonviolent approach as an existential threat to the dictatorship.

The Brothers to the Rescue shoot down case in the U.S. courts

U.S. courts found the Cuban government guilty of premeditation in the February 24, 1996 shoot down. Family members of the four men have over the past twenty years pursued and continue to pursue justice. They have had concrete results.

1. On November 14, 1997 U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King found Cuba guilty in civil court of planning the shoot down before the actual attack, and noted that there had been ample time to issue warnings to the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft if these had been needed. 
2.  A jury in criminal court presided by U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard on June 10, 2001 found Cuban spy Gerardo Hernandez guilty of conspiracy to commit murder because of his role in providing information to the Cuban government on the flight plans of Brothers to the Rescue. 
3. On August 21, 2003 a U.S. grand jury indicted the two fighter pilots and their commanding general on murder charges for the 1996 shoot down. Indictments were returned against General Ruben Martinez Puente, who at the time headed the Cuban Air Force, and fighter pilots Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez and Francisco Perez-Perez. The defendants were charged with four counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and two counts of destruction of aircraft. They are still at large.

There has been a lack of political will on behalf of the The White House to pursue justice in the premeditated, extrajudicial murders of these four men. The Obama administration commuted the double life sentence of Gerardo Hernandez, the one man actually imprisoned for conspiracy to commit murder in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down on December 17, 2014 setting him free and returning him to Cuba. Nevertheless, the families of Armando, Mario, Carlos and Pablo continue their struggle for memory, truth, and justice on behalf of their loved ones. This means “the indictments of the military officials involved, from Raul Castro, Minister of the Armed Forces, down the military chain of command” and documenting what happened.


Source for additional information

Official page of Brothers to the Rescue on the shoot down
Official page of the Families of Armando, Carlos, Mario and Pablo

Cuba's Morality Quiz

Cuba's Morality Quiz*

The FBI busted up a Cuban spy network that infiltrated U.S. military installations, obtained home addresses of U.S. military officers, and successfully conspired to murder three US citizens and one resident in an act of state terrorism. Ten Cuban agents arrested by the FBI had infiltrated and filed detailed reports on the U.S. Southern Command and the Boca Chica Naval Air Station. Not to mention the case of Ana Belen Montes, the high-ranking Defense Intelligence Agency analyst arrested shortly after 9/11 who pleaded guilty to spying against America for Castro.

The four murder victims were members of Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR) founded in 1991 to spot rafters in the Florida Straits and save their lives. Amnesty International's Holly Ackerman co-authored a monograph on Cuban rafters indicating that thousands have died trying to flee Castro's Cuba. On July 13, 1994, four Cuban government boats equipped with high-pressure water hoses attacked an old tugboat that was fleeing Cuba with 72 people aboard.

The massacre took place seven miles off the Cuban coast. They attacked the runaway tug with their prows while at the same time spraying everyone, including women and children, with pressurized water. The old boat sank, with a toll of 37 dead, including 10 children and a further 18 youths.

This was not an isolated event. The regime has a history of committing atrocities against fleeing Cubans. One year later on July 13, 1995 a memorial flotilla for the victims was forced to turn back. At the moment that the hull of the lead boat was partially crushed, BTTR planes flew over Havana dropping bumper stickers that read, "Comrades No. Brothers." July 13, 1995, not February 24, 1996 was when Brothers to the Rescue planes flew into and out of Cuban airspace.

Fidel Castro was humiliated and began to plot his revenge using his spies led by Gerardo Hernández to gather information, attempt to discredit and develop a conspiracy that eight months later on the afternoon of February 24, 1996 ended in a premeditated attack with Cuban MiGs blowing to bits two BTTR planes, murdering Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, Carlos Costa, and Pablo Morales. Castro personally took responsibility for the destruction of the planes.

The goal was to destroy all three planes on that mission, and then have Juan Pablo Roque appear as the lone survivor to offer his "testimony." But with one plane's survival and recordings of routine communications with Cuban government air-traffic controllers, as well as the fact that the two destroyed planes' flight paths were outside Cuban national airspace, the conspiracy unraveled and Roque's story changed.

Morality quiz: Cuban agents murder four Americans in an act of state terrorism. Fidel Castro admits prior knowledge and takes responsibility for the attack. U.S government authorities respond by tightening economic sanction; two years later uncovering an espionage network involved in the murder conspiracy; and seven years later charging Cuban military officials in absentia for the extrajudicial killings. The Cuban dictatorship launches an international campaign to release these agents. This attack planned out by Cuban officials and the early release of the agents involved in the conspiracy would be:

A) right

B) wrong

C) legal

D) illegal

E) something that would lead terrorists to think it is open season on U.S. citizens

*A version of this essay was originally published in The Miami New Times on February 13, 2003